Internet Fails to Accurately Forecast Brief Flat Spell

By Guest Goldminer Nick Carroll.

Toonalook Point, East Coast Australia – Local Surfers pronounced themselves furious today after they claimed the Internet had not warned them about a lull just before lunchtime.

The lull, which appeared in the midst of an otherwise consistent five foot south east swell, left numerous surfers sitting out the point for over 10 minutes.

“It was like the swell had vanished,” claimed apprentice plumber John Jones, who’d paddled out at around 11am after getting a downpipe installed earlier than expected. “One minute it was pumping, then the next it was pretty much flat. I was worried I might not get back in before me boss got down for the lunch surf check and busted me.”

Sets began rolling in again fairly soon, but not before a number of surfers and onlookers had begun asking serious questions as to why the Internet had not predicted the lull.

“It’s this sort of unreasonable inaccuracy that causes us to lose faith in this Internet thing,” declared old time local surfer Paul “Piggy” Smith, while others murmured their assent in the background.

“People talk it up, but if the technology was all it’s cracked up to be, it surely woulda warned us about this.”

A spokesman for the Internet later explained that the gigantic global computer network, which links together literally millions of separate databases and server farms into a vast, shadowy electronic web ominously similar to the human-extinction-seeking Skynet from the Terminator film series, had suffered a “glitch”.

Meanwhile, back at the Point, a number of surfers declared they would not be venturing into the water again until they could be sure the forecast was flawlessly accurate. “I’m on surf strike,” said Harry Harolds, a financial services advisor up from Melbourne on holiday. “It doesn’t make sense to waste the effort of paddling out when you can’t be sure there’ll be a set in 25 minutes’ time.

“If the Internet was this hopeless with forecasting the stock market, imagine the state of the world economy. It just can’t go on.”